It’s the holiday season, so of course, its time again for a Frequent Traveler Happy Hour for Toys for Tots! We started this tradition in 2016, and partnering with Ed from Pizza in Motion and Jeanne from Le Chic Geek, we made it even bigger in 2017.

Toys for Tots 2018 Event – Tons of toys!

And we’re doing it again this year!

The event will be in Arlington, VA, thanks to Jeanne’s amazing contacts with seemingly every DC restaurant. Details below:

The event will be 10 December, 6-9pm. We’ll have representation from the US Marine Corp to accept the toys (and our appreciation for their service). We’ll have friends, fellowship, and plenty of great time to talk travel!

We are asking that you bring a toy for a child that might otherwise not have a toy underneath their tree.

Doing Good – Supporting Toys for Tots

When I originally got into this community, I got in via blogs that shared tips to generate miles and points–and ultimately–great experiences, because they wanted to help. Randy founded FlyerTalk, then later partnering with others–including Ed Pizzarello himself– founding MilePoint with a similar goal in mind. Sharing the amazing things available for folks that want to put some effort in, to get amazing travel opportunities. That grew further to include doing good for others. There’s a MilePoint Kiva Lending Team that is doing amazing good for people who might otherwise not get microloans to do good in their own community. All of these things were inspiration for us in the travel community to do good.

With that in mind, we invite you to the bring a toy, do some good, and share in the holiday revelry with fellow travel hackers.

If you’re wondering about the best way to procure such toys, this week, you are bound to find fantastic deals where you can leverage Shopping Portals to get some miles while you’re helping to make kids’ Christmas!

A few things I saw in the Cyber Monday advertisements that could be fun are (Note: none of these links are affiliates that benefit me; to the best extent possible I’ve stripped out any tags at all — this is about the kids!) :

What goes into hosting a ResellingDO

There is a lot of time that goes into selecting venues, working agreements, finding awesome presenters, and don’t forget the catering. All of these aspects take great care and effort, so that we can put on quality events like ResellingDO3, and NapaDO. But the hardest part is the leap of faith one must take to sign a contract for $6,500 (or more) for an event, without having a single ticket sold. Setting that ticket price is also rather tough. Unfortunately, shutting down a brewery is not the cheapest endeavor. So I needed to factor in that I needed to spend at least $6,500 (not including tips for the staff), so I established that in order for the event to be break even, at the $149 we set the ticket price at, we needed at least 43 attendees.

As of 29 July when I finally called it, we had sold 8 tickets.

To put it differently, as of 29 July, when I had to make the decision on the contract (they do give us a brief window to pull out), I stood to lose around $5,000, hosting this event.

What happens to those 8 folks that bought tickets?

We have refunded those tickets already. I’ll try to go a little further for those 8 folks, because they were committed to attending, some making the purchase the first day tickets went on sale.

ResellingDO’s going forward

As for the future of ResellingDO. Putting on events takes a significant amount of time and to put on quality events such as my wife and I strive to do, they also cost a bunch. Further, we’ve never had sponsors because I’ve always wanted to ensure that we have the freedom of what we present. Going forward, I will still coordinate events but we will limit it to the Mile High Reselling Club (MHRC) primarily, which will help us properly gauge scale of interest, and essentially the scale of the event.

Wrapping Up

It was very hard for me personally to come to terms with the decision to cancel this ResellingDO. Going into it, I had thought this event was going to be the largest we’ve had, given the great interest we saw in a beginner level event. We chose to go back to a venue that has treated us well and that we had received great feedback on from past events. What this all leads me to believe, is that this type of an event may no longer be the best approach. I’m not quite sure what is the best approach, but I’ll keep trying things to see what works, because I really strongly believe that face to face networking and conversation is what builds this community the best.

Frequent Traveler University moves to DC, and its only a month away! Frequent Traveler University DC will take place at the Crystal City Marriott in Northern Virginia, just out side of Washington, DC (in fact, its walking distance from Reagan National Airport!), August 11-12.

Frequent Traveler University DC

I’m excited to to be a part of a really great group of speakers lined up. You can see the full agenda via the FTU Signature DC Page, but to highlight a few:

Greg the Frequent Miler will share his top 10 Insider Tips

There will be a Beginner’s Boot Camp Track covering everything from concepts, airline awards, and manufactured spending

Matthew Klint will be talking about exotic travel – whether its the aspirational beach destinations, or those places you see in the news and may be curious to visit.

DC Local Charles McCool will be talking about habits of happy travelers, which is important, because so often we focus so much on the planning that the experience somehow falls short.

Spencer Howard, another fellow DC Local will be covering Award Sweet Spots, and trust me, if you like my trip reports, you are going to want to learn from him, he’s all about premium travel.

Getting the Greatest Value out of Frequent Traveler University DC

The speakers at Frequent Travel University DC really are spectacular, but the real value of these events is the networking. As I’ve said before, Embrace the Community! This is an excellent opportunity to network with like minded travel hackers.

Even better, you can now save $30 off the ticket (net cost ends up being $219 per ticket) with code SIZZLE if you grab tickets with this link by Midnight PST on 20 July 2018. Also, if you are going, please don’t forget to sign up for the Friday, August 10pizza dinner at Fire Works Pizza 2350 Clarendon Blvd, Arlington, VA 22201 (attendees will get a RSVP email prior to the event, limited to first 55 participants to register, includes assorted pizzas, drinks not included.)

When we announced NapaDO in March, many asked for a #ResellingDO for Beginners. I have heard your call, and have stepped things up. The next ResellingDO event will return to Jailbreak Brewery in Laurel, MD, and we’re taking over the entire tap room over on Saturday, 15 September!

For those that attended ResellingDO 3, you might have a bit of a surprise, because since that event, Jailbreak has added in a restaurant!

#ResellingDO For Beginners – The Details:

When: Saturday, September 15th, 2018

What: A full day of networking, presentations on credit cards, Merch by Amazon, Online and Retail Arbitrage

ResellingDO Highlights

We’ve locked in some excellent speakers for this #ResellingDO for Beginners!

Ed Pizzarello

Haley Bach

Joey Redmond

and I’ll also be giving a presentation.

We’ll cover a handful of core topics for reselling, specifically, retail and online arbitrage, Merch by Amazon, and mile and point maximization for all that legitimate spend you are making.

And for those of you who’ve been reselling for a while – it’s still a great opportunity to come, network with folks, and I’m sure you’ll pick up at least a few new tips. If not, did I mention there’s good beer?

Frequent Traveler University (FTU) is one of the biggest conference series in the mile and point community (alongside the Chicago Seminars). Lucky for those of us in the National Capital Region, FTU is coming back to the Washington DC area 11-12 August 2018!

Frequent Traveler University in DC

FTU is bringing a great group of speakers to DC, and I say that not just because I’m included!

Ok in all seriousness, it’s really a solid line-up:

Tiffany Funk – she’s the one writing all those great posts about redeeming miles and points over at One Mile at a Time.

Matthew Klint – He’s not just the guy fighting airlines like Aeroplan and Swiss, he’s also traveled to more exotic places than anyone else I know.

Spencer Howard – This guy travels in first class almost as much as I do! He’s also explored some interesting manufacturing techniques like RoomiPay

Stefan Krasowski – Ok, maybe Matthew doesn’t go as far flung as Stefan, he’s been to more places than most. He was the First Guest at the Four Season’s in Seychelles, and travels faster than me! I’m sure he’s already blown my 74 hours in India–which included a wonderful stay at the Oberoi in Agra–out of the water.

Becky Pokora – If you’ve ever traveled and done a “hop on, hop off” bus, or other “sightseeing” options, you need to hear what Becky does as she demonstrates and advocates SightDOING.

Ed Pizzarello will be considering the beltway battle between American and United in the DC area, as well as other topics.

We attempted to break the mold–yet again–with NapaDO. We kind’ve broke the mold with the first few ResellingDO’s. That said the Merryvale winery, that is graciously working with us to make this the most amazing ResellingDO event so far, requires that we lock in attendee numbers a week early. I can’t fault them. Everyone needs to plan.

Why should you attend NapaDO?

If you have a reselling business, this is probably a no brainer. If you’re in the miles and points game and you have a reselling business, this might be the event for you. If you’re a casual travel hacker, well, I’m going to be honest, it’s probably not the event for you. All that said, I think it’s important to highlight the type of value you will get from this event.

When I plan events like these, the first thing I ask myself, is: What are my blind spots? What am I not smart enough on? Then I bounce those ideas off of friends and mentors–people that are experts in their fields–and we come up with a plan. This event is a perfect example of that. My friends, we have an amazing cadre of speakers, as I’ve shared before.

Here is a recap:

Matt (aka @Saverocity) talks about why he is excited about NapaDO, His presentation will provide you insight into how you can leverage the new tax laws to increase your tax deductions. He says it’s likely worth an additional 5-6 figure deduction in 2018! As if that wasn’t enough:

Joey (aka @joeyredmond) will get you smart on Tactical Arbitrage. If you’re not familiar with Tactical Arbitrage, it is one of the gold standards for Online Arbitrage. Also, this is a great opportunity to see how you can further leverage one of my favorite reselling cards, the AT&T Access More.

Geoff (aka @Alpen_Geoff) will show you how to do Seller Fulfilled Prime shipping. He’ll show you how you can use Seller Fulfilled Prime shipping to increase profit, and not go crazy doing it! This will be even more important as Amazon raised FBA fees on 22 February.

Of course, Amazon released some interesting numbers in their recent February notes. That got me thinking. Typically our March events are for fairly experienced folks. Looking at the attendees, I’d say you’re talking about a pretty significant percentage of folks that are in that 140,000 of sellers with greater than $100,000 annual sales.

Bottom line: If you want to network with folks that are doing significant numbers on Amazon, you need to be at NapaDO.

NapaDO Information:

The event will definitely be one not to miss. It’s clearly exclusive, and we’ll be incorporating a true Napa experience.

When: Saturday, March 17th, 2018

What: A full day of networking, presentations on more advanced reselling topics.

I’ve been putting on ResellingDO reselling events for years. On average, we do 2 events per year. #NapaDO is the latest of those events, but I find some of the feedback I’ve received privately rather interesting. Since the first ResellingDO I’ve been uber conscious on cost. The event series started out as an idea to get resellers together and, as Hawaiians say: “Talk Story”. It has grown to so much more. It has supercharged so many folks’ reselling businesses that I’ve lost count.

Supercharge your reselling business with #NapaDO!

Full disclosure: Our March events are generally for more advanced resellers. We focus on more entry level to intermediate topics in the second event of the year. That said, We will have speakers that are veritable experts in their fields.

Matt (aka @Saverocity) talks about why he is excited about NapaDO, His presentation will provide you insight into how you can leverage the new tax laws to increase your tax deductions. He says its likely worth an additional 5-6 figure deduction in 2018! As if that wasn’t enough:

Joey (aka @joeyredmond) will get you smart on Tactical Arbitrage. If you’re not familiar with Tactical Arbitrage, it is one of the gold standards for Online Arbitrage. This is a great opportunity to see how you can further leverage one of my favorite reselling cards, the AT&T Access More.

Geoff (aka @Alpen_Geoff) will show you how to do Seller Fulfilled Prime shipping. He’ll show you how you can use Seller Fulfilled Prime shipping to increase profit, and not go crazy doing it! This will be even more important as Amazon raises FBA fees on 22 February.

Why Napa?

A few folks have reached out to me privately and asked why Napa? Answer: From the start, I have been focused on providing attendees unique experiences. The first ResellingDO was held at a brewery and included a tour of that brewery. Each successive event has been held in a unique location. The fact is, Napa is pricier than previous locations for ResellingDO’s. But, it offers us a very unique opportunity. We’ll be enjoying presentations in a winery with excellent wine–I should know, I had the opportunity to taste those same wines just two weeks ago. You’ll get a tour of the Merryvale winery and you’ll get to taste their wonderful wines, too.

The Details:

When: Saturday, March 17th, 2018

What: A full day of networking, presentations on more advanced reselling topics.

Its hard to put a value on networking

Perhaps the biggest focus on ResellingDO events is networking. Generally that networking includes alcohol–but it is of course optional. We ensure that there is at least a few opportunities for networking. This event will be no different. However I really wanted to include something unique. In the evening networking, I’d like to include an unconference style lighting talk series, for any attendees that have something they’d like to share. We might even have a bottle of wine for folks that feel emboldened to share their expertise with the group.

Announcing the NapaDO Speakers

In a few weeks, we’ll be sending out a survey to narrow in on the discussion topics, but I can guarantee that these folks’ breadth of knowledge is definitely going to make this the best ResellingDO yet!

Feel free to leave a comment with any topics you’d like to hear about at NapaDO

Because we’ll be in Napa, we’ll be meeting for a half day of presentations at the Merryvale winery. We’ll follow that up with a wine tasting before heading across the street to Gott’s Napafor lunch. Since we’ll be doing a wine tasting, and in Napa, we’ll hop on a bus back to the Westin Napa (rather than having to drive).

We’ve locked in some excellent speakers, including 2 that have not spoken at previous ResellingDO events, so we’ll definitely have fresh material and fresh insights to learn from!

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